A Goodly Heritage

"I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain." — Gal. 2:21. I told you the last day (what you may learn by your own reading), that the end in view of the apostle in this epistle is, to teach and defend the doctrine of the justification of a sinner by the righteousness of Christ, apprehended by faith alone. In the text the apostle hath two arguments for this truth, against the contrary error, with which the Galatians were plagued; and both arguments are taken from the absurdities that follow upon the contrary doctrine. 1st, That seeking righteousness by the works of law, doth frustrate and make void the grace of God. 2dly, That it makes Christ's death to be in vain: and there is nothing revealed by the Lord, in his word, more sacred, and more solemnly majestic than these two — the grace of God, and the death of Christ; and therefore it must needs be a great wickedness to enervate, and overthrow both these. From ...

"Lord, it is good for us to be here." I.  THIS EVENT HAD A SPECIAL EVIDENTIAL VALUE; it proved to St. Peter and — to the other apostles with him that their Master's claims were not exaggerated; that in giving up all to follow Him, they were not making a mistake; that the religion He had taught them, and of which He was Himself the centre, had come from heaven. These Jews see their Master in the correspondence with the great lawgiver and the prophets. Also they were assured by the voice out of the cloud. Then our Lord's glorious appearance at the Transfiguration was exactly fitted to remove a prevalent objection to the second advent. That objection was due to sluggish imagination rather than to offended reason. The picture of the Son of Man coming in " the clouds of heaven " seemed to a certain order of minds too remote from all experience to be conceivable, and St. Peter's answer in effect is this: "We have been witnesses of an event which has pr...

THE DIVINE SOVEREIGNTY IN THE PHYSICAL REALM. Nature is full of the manifestations of a great intelligence, full of remarkable adjustments and adaptations, full of ordered sequences and wise contrivances. In other words, Nature, through all her domain, from those gleaming stars which shoot their rays through vast and interminable spaces down to those invisible and primordial atoms of which all substances are composed, and which maintain their ceaseless movements to and fro, is subject to a high and beneficent power. Everywhere there is manifest the sovereignty of law, and the sovereignty of law is the sovereignty of God. In most great cities they have a mansion house, or some similar building, which is a symbol and centre of that civic authority which rules over the whole of the area comprised in the civic boundary; and so this physical universe is the mansion house of creation's God — not a house empty and tenantless, so far as the Creator's presence is concerned, but occupie...

.  THE WAYS BY WHICH GOD USUALLY PREPARES AND RIPENS A SINNER FOR CERTAIN DESTRUCTION. 1.  By withholding the virtue and power of His ordinances; and when God seals up the influences of these conduits, no wonder if the soul withers and dies with drought. For, alas! what is a conduit by which nothing is conveyed! That which God uses as an instrument to save, meeting with the corruption of some obdurate hearts, is made a means to ruin: as it softens some, so it hardens others. As the same rain that, falling upon a tree or plant, makes it grow and flourish: falling upon wood cut down and dried, makes it rot and decay. He whom the very means of salvation did not save must needs perish. 2.  By restraining the convincing power of His providences. (1) Common calamities. (2) Particular judgments. (3) Unexpected deliverances. 3.  By delivering up the sinner to a stupidity or searedness of conscience. This hardness growing upon the conscience, is like a film growi...

I would press the importance, the necessity, of immediately becoming religious — I.  BECAUSE OF THE SHORTNESS AND UNCERTAINTY OF LIFE. You are mortal; it is appointed to all men once to die. You are frail, and may die soon and suddenly. You stake your soul without any equivalent; for if life should be spared you gain nothing; but should it be cut short, you lose all, you are ruined for eternity. II.  BECAUSE YOU CANNOT PROPERLY, OR EVEN LAWFULLY, PROMISE TO GIVE WHAT IS NOT YOUR OWN. To-morrow is not yours; and it is yet uncertain whether it ever will be. To-day is the only time which you can properly give to God. III.  BECAUSE IF YOU DEFER THE COMMENCEMENT OF A RELIGIOUS LIFE, THOUGH BUT TILL TO-MORROW, YOU MUST HARDEN YOUR HEARTS AGAINST THE VOICE OF GOD. God commands and exhorts you to commence a religious life immediately. If you do not comply, you must refuse, for there is no medium. If you disobey, you must assign some excuse to justify your disobedience, or you...

I.  THE PRACTICE OF SINGING. Old Testament saints, as well as New, seem never weary of celebrating the praises of their Lord and Saviour; because He was made an offering for their sins, dead, risen, and ascended to His throne. And this is still the sweetest subject in the Church of Christ; for happy are they who have the Lord for their God — yea, thrice happy they who have "the kingdom of God" set up within them, which "is righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." II.  THE OBJECT OF SINGING PSALMS. The object of singing is, we see distinctly, the praise of Jesus. It is very important for you to notice that; for as the joy of the believer arises from his conscious standing in Jesus, so this joy is expressed in celebrating the praises of the glorious person and redeeming work of Jesus — for "God would have all men to honour the Son even as they honour the Father." Singing is the outward expression of inward joy; and this is no doubt why the Ho...

The last idea that occurs to some professing Christians is that Christianity or that Christian life is a warfare. It has been noticed by discerning persons that almost as soon as a man joins the Church he settles down into indifference or selfish enjoyment — as if a man should enlist into the army, and then go home and sit down all the rest of his days on the sunny side of his house and in the favourite spot of his garden. What kind of enlistment is that? In addition to this the next mistake that is made is that persons who enter the Christian service imagine that all the fighting is to be done outside. You cannot fight outside until you have fought inside. The first man you have to kill is yourself. It is possible to be a magnificently grand philanthropist in public, and to let your own family starve for want of sympathy. On the other hand, it is possible for men to be so generous at home as to have no larger charity, not to care about those who are far off and at present unknown; po...